#Ordnance

The Black Rain Ordnance BRO Predator 6.5 Creedmoor is a new offering from this Missouri company that continues to build excellent AR15 and AR10 rifles. Black Rain Ordnance just moved into their new 27,000 square foot facility.  They manufacture almost every part of their rifles in-house with the exception of the Magpul Miad grip and PRS stock.

In the mid-2000s, India began looking for a carbine to replace their 9mm L2A3 Sterling submachine guns which they inherited from the United Kingdom. Two weapons were developed, one by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), and another by the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), a subdivision of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The Ordnance Factory Board produced the AMOGH carbine, while the DRDO produced the Modern Sub Machine Carbine (MSMC, also known as the Joint Venture Protective Carbine, or JVPC). These weapons reportedly competed against each other, and by the early 2010s, the MSMC had been selected as the Sterling replacement.

In the mid-2000s, India began looking for a carbine to replace their 9mm L2A3 Sterling submachine guns which they inherited from the United Kingdom. Two weapons were developed, one by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), and another by the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), a subdivision of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The Ordnance Factory Board produced the AMOGH carbine, while the DRDO produced the MSMC. These weapons reportedly competed against each other, and by the early 2010s, the MSMC had been selected as the Sterling replacement. However, the AMOGH is still being marketed to customers by the OFB, and has reportedly been purchased by the Indian Coast Guard.

The US Army’s new centralized procurement organization has been named: In his address at the Eisenhower Luncheon at the 2017 Association of the United States Army, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley announced the creation of a Futures and Modernization Command (FMC), which would oversee the process of research, development, testing, evaluation, and procurement (RDTE&P) from start to finish. In his address, General Milley outlined a new process which would fundamentally change the current procurement model to a new one based on that used by US Special Operations Command:

US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley has released a letter outlining a major reform and restructuring effort for US Army weapons development, testing, and procurement. In the letter, CSA General Milley spoke of the need for a new procurement command structure:

The war in Syria and Iraq has seen the development of a whole range of scratchbuilt and improvised weapons that are as ingenious as they are destructive. Recently, a kind of serially-produced rocket launcher has come to light as part of Da’ish (ISIS) propaganda, which appears to demonstrate a capability to serially produce clandestine weapons of a fairly high degree of sophistication. The weapon, a multipurpose missile launcher with a high explosive warhead, is unassuming and appears roughly equivalent to the US AT4, though cruder. It is a simple tube with almost no fittings or sights, a carrying/support handle, and a safety pin securing a fold-out firing grip.

Information on this round and the weapons designed to fire it is scarce, so the details in this article may be at times incorrect. Just letting you know. -NF

How can one balance the trade-offs inherent in ammunition design to create a true one-caliber infantry weapon system that is both effective and lightweight? This is a question I’ve been exploring for close to a decade, and writing about for over four years. The question is extremely compelling to me because so much is demanded of the answer: Unlike with two-caliber systems, all the needs of the infantry must be met with one single caliber configuration, so each and every dimension must be carefully measured to allow the lowest possible weight, which is arguably the most important single characteristic of small arms ammunition.

Among the interesting concepts that were tested in the mid-late 20th Century is that of an extremely light for caliber, very long bullet made in part of a lightweight material like aluminum and plastic. The 7.92×40 CETME, which if I can find a specimen I will cover later on, is one example, but starting in 1972 the now-closed Frankford Arsenal began experiments on 5.56mm cases loaded with super-long projectiles with von Karman ogives, with the aim of creating a lightweight round using a low-density projectile and an aluminum case. Original testing was conducted with full-length 5.56mm cases and two lengths of bullets, but eventually a shortened brass case and a 37gr bullet with the same shape as the shorter initial test bullet was created. As a solution to the problem of burn-though with aluminum cases, the Arsenal developed a plastic insert called a “flexible internal element” (FIE), and the brass cased rounds developed for ballistic testing also had FIEs. This shorter round in both aluminum and brass cased forms was called the 5.56x38mm FABRL, which stood for “Frankford Arsenal – Ballistics Research Laboratory”, and this at some point was made into a backronym for “Future Ammunition for Burst Rifle Launch”.

In this installment, we’ll be looking at a very unique round. The 6mm SAW was probably the first small arms round ever designed using computer-calculated parametric analysis, and it was also probably the first American rifle round designed from the outset for steel cartridge cases. The initial design parameters were for a round effective to 1,000 meters, and which accepted a tracer that would give a visible daylight burn out to 800 meters, and this resulted in a caliber of 6mm with a 105 grain slender steel-jacketed lead-cored bullet possessing a high length/drag ratio. Although fired at modest velocity, the sleek bullet retained its energy extremely well, giving the round good long-range penetrating power, especially compared to the 5.56mm rounds at the time. Ultimately, the 6mm SAW succeeded in its ballistic goals, but was rejected on logistical grounds, as the idea of fielding three different rounds (5.56mm, 6mm, and 7.62mm) was not considered feasible.

This is the fourth part of a series of posts seeking to describe and analyze the 7.62mm Lightweight Rifle concept promoted by the Americans, and subsequently adopted by NATO in various forms. This series will cover development from before World War II to the present day, but will focus primarily on the period from 1944-1970, which constitutes the span of time from the Light Rifle’s conception until its end in the United States with the standardization of the M16. This article itself deals with the fully automatic variants of the M1 rifle developed before US focus shifted to the then-new, shorter .30 Light Rifle cartridge that led to the 7.62 NATO caliber. Therefore, all rifles covered in this article were chambered for the standard .30 M2 caliber, and the series of fully automatic M1 derivatives chambered for the .30 Light Rifle experimental round will be covered in a subsequent installment. In more than one way, this is the first “true” installment of the Light Rifle series, as the three preceding articles can be considered prologue material, though that does not reduce the importance of their subjects. My readers should also note that while I consulted a variety of sources to write this article, my narrative heavily relies upon Bruce Canfield’s magnum opus The M1 Garand Rifle , as well as R. Blake Stevens’ U.S. Rifle M14 from John Garand to the M21. Indeed, the title of this article is adapted from the third chapter of that latter book, as I could think of nothing superior.

RPGs. Who hasn’t considered getting their hands on one just once – once! – and unloading on something, be it a building, vehicle, or some other inanimate object. The appeal is certainly there, and although it cannot be considered forgotten, the RPG-7 recently found its way onto Forgotten Weapons’ YouTube channel.

This is the third part of a series of posts seeking to describe and analyze the 7.62mm Light Rifle concept promoted by the Americans, and subsequently adopted by NATO in various forms. This series will cover development from before World War II to the present day, but will focus primarily on the period from 1944-1970, which constitutes the span of time from the Light Rifle’s conception until its end in the United States with the standardization of the M16. This article itself deals primarily with the M1E series of modified Garand rifles created at Springfield Armory between 1941 and 1945. However, some rifles in the series are left out, these being the sniper rifle variations (M1E2, M1E6, M1E7, and M1E8), as well as the 7.62mm M1 conversion (M1E14) developed in the early 1960s. My readers should also note that while I consulted a variety of sources to write this article, my narrative heavily favors Bruce Canfield’s magnum opus The M1 Garand Rifle , as it is the most recent and complete source of information on the M1E series that I know of. On some matters, Canfield contradicts earlier sources like R. Blake Stevens’ U.S. Rifle M14 from John Garand to the M21, which is itself an excellent volume.

The National Firearms Museum in Fairfax Virginia is one of the most important collections of small arms in the world, but their representatives also leave the museum and travel to places where they can find firearms that they don’t have in their collection. As part of their Curator’s Corner segment on the NFM Curator’s YouTube channel, the Museum has released two videos filmed at the Wanenmacher Tulsa Arms Show covering some of the rarest of the rare 9mm handguns:

While digging through the IAA Forum (an excellent resource for the cartridge collector) archives for data on the 7.65 Argentine, I came across these two threads chronicling two separate instances of spotter ammunition detonating while using an impact puller to remove the bullet! Yikes!